SeekOut analyzes code contributions from GitHub users to determine how well-accepted or influential their code is. Using that analysis, we assign each member a Coder Score of one to five stars based on their demonstrated contributions.

SeekOut looks at all public code contributions on GitHub to assess a candidate’s SeekOut Coder Score. We compute a score by examining where the code is placed to measure its impact. SeekOut calculates this score per language as well, so candidates are rated on their expertise with Java vs. Python, for instance.

The two most significant factors in determining a score are how many other people are working on a GitHub project and how often the code is copied.

Some GitHub projects have only a single person working on them, while others have thousands of contributors. The number of contributors is related to code quality because there is much more scrutiny of any new code in a project with more contributors.

GitHub supports a culture of code copying called “forking.” Candidates get points toward their Coder Score based on how often their code is forked by others. Candidates who seldom have their code forked get very few points toward their Coder Score, whereas candidates who have their code forked often get a lot of points toward their Coder Score.

We link to the candidate’s actual code in GitHub. You can click through to their code and see what the candidate wrote before starting outreach with them.

Because we measure demonstrated ability based on actual GitHub contributions, you can be confident a developer with a 3, 4, or 5-star rating is very strong. Developers with lower scores, however, may still be very good or even great, but they typically do not engage in a lot of Open-Source development.